How The Brain Handles Surprise

How The Brain Handles Surprise

Whether it’s a mugger or a friend who jumps out of the bushes, you’re still surprised. But your response — to flee or to hug — must be very different. Now, researchers have begun to distinguish the…
Evolution's Balancing Act

Evolution's Balancing Act

Evolution carries out an incredibly tricky balancing act: the genetic program of a species has to be resistant to small changes, yet also susceptible to the adaptive remodeling of natural selection…
The Rise of the Methuselah Mouse

The Rise of the Methuselah Mouse

I haven't been screwing off. Here is my report from the third conference for Strategically Engineered Negligable Senescence, the brainchild of cell biologist Aubrey DeGrey, as it appeared in the…
The Upside To Biofuels: It Will Help Poor People

The Upside To Biofuels: It Will Help Poor People

Biofuels are a wash environmentally and a negative economically because they requite subsidies to be competitive but there is one way they are a boon: the increase in world agriculture prices caused…